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OpenChain Webinar #56: Generative AI and Your Code

By 2023-09-04September 27th, 2023News

Maximizing the Opportunity While Managing the Risks

September 11th @ 17:00 PST / September 12th @ 08:00 CST / 09:00 KST + JST


Generative AI (GAI) provides powerful opportunities for innovation and productivity across all organizational functions – from composing emails and crafting press releases to retouching and refining images and video, all this in seconds.  GAI tools can even be used to write, test and improve computer code!  This comes with risks that need to be managed within your organization, in order to realize the competitive advantage these GAI tools can provide.

In this webinar, Anthony Decicco and Wael Nackasha, attorneys at GTC Law Group, will:

  • Provide an introduction to GAI and its use to generate software code, text, and images
  • Explain how machines learn, including training data and the resulting models
  • Cover how developers are using GAI tools (such as GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT) to write and augment source code, with a focus on:
    • A ‘demo’ of how the tools work
    • The community reactions and recent litigation
    • The benefits and risks of the tools
    • Ways to mitigate the risks
    • Best practices for policies and procedures

About Our Speakers

Anthony Decicco

Tony is a member in GTC’s IP Strategy, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Business & Technology Transactions groups. He focuses on mergers and acquisitions, strategic development of patent portfolios, valuing and commercializing intellectual property assets, and licensing and other technology-related transactions. In addition, Tony founded and oversees the firm’s Open Source Compliance and Due Diligence practice and has extensive experience advising clients regarding the use of open source software. He has reviewed the results of literally thousands of code scans.

Tony is also the Co-Lead of GTC’s Artificial Intelligence practice and has counseled clients regarding traditional AI/ML (i.e. algorithmic/rules-based) for many years and has more recently focused on generative AI. He specializes in data set licensing and strategies for acquiring and collecting data, developing patent portfolios focused on AI inventions and applications of AI technologies, developing AI-related contract terms, risk assessment and mitigation, and related policies and guidelines, in respect of using AI to generate and test software code and the intersections between open source software and AI.  Tony is the co-chair of the AI & Cloud Computing sector of the Licensing Executives Society.

Tony’s clients range from individual inventors to Fortune 100 companies. Given his extensive experience on both the buy and sell sides of mergers and acquisitions, patent purchases/sales and IP/technology licensing transactions, he is a trusted advisor to clients on all sides of the table. For acquirers, a key strength is his ability to leverage this experience to quickly identify and assess IP-related risks. On the sell side, this experience translates to grooming clients and positioning IP assets to maximize value and minimize issues during rigorous due diligence.

Prior to joining GTC, Tony was a member of the IP & Technology, Internet & E-Commerce and M&A practice groups at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. He has research and professional experience in a diverse range of fields, including patent valuation, law and economics, molecular evolution, apoptosis, and lipid biochemistry. Tony holds an Honors B.Sc. in Biochemistry from McMaster University, an M.A. in Economics and a J.D., both from the University of Toronto, where he was a law review editor. He is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, New York, Ontario, and before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (with Limited Recognition).

Wael Louis Nackasha

Wael focuses on M&A due diligence and technology-related transactional matters. Wael specializes in open source software licenses, commercial licenses, strategic and commercially-sensitive NDAs, and IP strategy advice. Wael also has deep technical knowledge in machine learning. Before joining GTC, Wael was an Associate at Ridout and Maybee LLP where he drafted and prosecuted patents for various technologies, including electrical, machine learning, blockchain, telecommunication, and computer-related technology, before both the USPTO and CIPO.

Before becoming a technology attorney, Wael was a research scientist and software programmer for several years. He published scientific papers in conferences and journals in machine learning, biometrics, computer vision, signal and image processing, and statistical signal processing. Wael holds a J.D. from Osgoode Hall Law School, and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto with a dissertation focused on artificial intelligence.